Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COOLPOL (Cooling with Electrocaloric Polymers)
Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2025-08-31
We recently showed that ceramic-based electrocaloric regenerators are very interesting for cooling applications. However, the potential of polymer-based electrocaloric regenerators is more than one order of magnitude larger, thanks to a much larger voltage-driven entropy change. This is what we want to investigate in this project, namely polymer-based electrocaloric coolers.
Hence, thanks to the recent progress made in electrocaloric polymers (ARKEMA), in electrocaloric heat exchangers (LIST) and in electronic modules for electrocaloric cooling (USTUTT), combined with the scale up capabilities of this consortium (KEMET), the goal of this project is to make an air conditioning system with a temperature span of 15 K, a low temperature below 12°C, 1 kW-cooling power and 60 %-efficiency. This requires a multidisciplinary approach combining 1) materials science (development of efficient electrocaloric materials and associated cooling modules), 2) thermodynamics (heat exchange and efficient cycles) and 3) electrical engineering (cooling control and energy recycling to increase efficiency).
To reach this final goal, three key objectives (KO) have been defined in this project.
Key objective 1 (KO1) – Development of electrocaloric polymers-based cooling modules (multilayer capacitors) with a temperature variation of 5 K at 12°C.
Key objective 2 (KO2) – Fabrication of regenerative heat exchangers with electrocaloric polymer cooling modules reaching a maximum temperature span of 30 K and a maximum cooling power density of 5000 W kg-1.
Key objective 3 (KO3) – Reaching high efficiency beyond 60 % of Carnot by recycling electric energy.
Hence, thanks to the recent progress made in electrocaloric polymers (ARKEMA), in electrocaloric heat exchangers (LIST) and in electronic modules for electrocaloric cooling (USTUTT), combined with the scale up capabilities of this consortium (KEMET), the goal of this project is to make an air conditioning system with a temperature span of 15 K, a low temperature below 12°C, 1 kW-cooling power and 60 %-efficiency. This requires a multidisciplinary approach combining 1) materials science (development of efficient electrocaloric materials and associated cooling modules), 2) thermodynamics (heat exchange and efficient cycles) and 3) electrical engineering (cooling control and energy recycling to increase efficiency).
To reach this final goal, three key objectives (KO) have been defined in this project.
Key objective 1 (KO1) – Development of electrocaloric polymers-based cooling modules (multilayer capacitors) with a temperature variation of 5 K at 12°C.
Key objective 2 (KO2) – Fabrication of regenerative heat exchangers with electrocaloric polymer cooling modules reaching a maximum temperature span of 30 K and a maximum cooling power density of 5000 W kg-1.
Key objective 3 (KO3) – Reaching high efficiency beyond 60 % of Carnot by recycling electric energy.
This first year has been dedicated to 1) finding the right electrocaloric polymers, 2) consolidating the fabrication process of electrocaloric multilayer capacitors, 3) finding a way to integrate electrocaloric cooling modules in a fluid-based heat exchanger and 4) developing a piece of electronics able to control the electric power applied to the cooling modules.
During this first year, we consolidated the approach and showed that it is valid and able to provide valuable results that will be further detailed on the second report.